


Live Long and Nerd On

by Lexalicious70



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Cosplay, Gen, Quentin is a huge nerd, Star Trek References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: One of the biggest Star Trek conventions in the country is taking place in New York City and Quentin simply can’t understand why no one else is excited about it.





	Live Long and Nerd On

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Neitherlands Library Challenge, Month One, (boys) week two (Quentin Coldwater) and because September 8th is National Star Trek Day! I don’t own The Magicians, this is just for fun. Comments and kudos are love! Live long and prosper.

Live Long and Nerd On

By Lexalicious 70 (TheChampagneKing70)

 

“You’re going to a _what_?”

 

Quentin looked up from the brochure he’d ordered from the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

 

“A Star Trek convention! It’s run by Creation Events, and they have this—it’s just this huge gathering and every year they have more and more guests! Look . . .” Quentin got up and went over to the cottage bar, where Eliot was making them both drinks. “This year they have both Patrick Stewart _and_ William Shatner! I mean, you just have no idea how huge that is!” Quentin shook the brochure at Eliot, who flinched back and eyed his friend.

 

“Okay, calm down, before you spill my liqueur.” Eliot moved the bottle out of the way. “And you’re sharing this news with me why?” He asked, handing Quentin a glass of something translucent with a touch of something smoky maroon, and Quentin sipped it before setting it down.

 

“Well . . . I was hoping maybe you’d come with me.” He said, and Eliot gave him a long stare before he chuffed laughter. From the couch, Margo joined in from behind her fashion magazine.

 

“You’re not serious.”

 

“I am! It’s no fun to go alone. I went with Julia a few times, but obviously, it’s not like I can ask her.” Quentin said, and Eliot lifted his glass briefly in a mock-salute to Julia’s new hedge witch lifestyle.

 

“No, I understand that you can’t, but Quentin, there’s simply no way. I don’t—I’m not a part of that world and I wouldn’t fit in at all. I’m the complete antitheses of—of your people.” Eliot said, and Quentin frowned as he realized that Eliot had barely avoided saying “those people.” He glanced over at Margo, who was peering over the edge of her magazine with an expression that dripped barely-concealed amusement.

 

“I got it.” Quentin nodded. He picked up his drink and headed up the stairs.

 

“Oh come on Quentin. Don’t be like that!” Eliot called after him, and Quentin’s mood darkened further as he heard Eliot shush Margo when she burst into laughter.

 

“ _You_ don’t be like that.”  Quentin muttered as he shoved his bedroom door open. “Ask a guy one small favor! You’d think I asked him to walk barefoot in pig shit.” He set the drink down on the dresser and took out the brochure again, gazing at its glossy front cover. He’d attended his first Star Trek convention at the age of seven, with his father. Jack Coldwater might have been bored by magic tricks and Fillory books, but Star Trek was something he and son agreed on completely. They’d gone every year, up until Quentin was eleven and his parents divorced. His mother, an aspiring painter whose career had been sidelined by Quentin’s arrival, had decided her time had come and planned a painting sabbatical in Italy without telling her husband. The resulting argument ended in a separation, and then a divorce eight months later, when Iris Coldwater decided she preferred Italy to America and being single to being married. After that, enthusiasm for most things seemed to bleed out of Quentin’s dad and the annual trips to the convention center stopped. He went a few times in his teens with a reluctant Julia, but this year the con was boasting over 125 Star Trek actors for the first time, and there was no way he could miss it.

 

“Quentin?” Alice’s voice spoke outside his door as she knocked and then opened it a crack before he answered, a habit Quentin found both endearing and irritating. He glanced up.

 

“Hey Alice.”

 

“Hey. Do you have book on Renaissance spells that I loaned you last week? I need it for a paper for Professor Li . . . what’s that?” She asked, gesturing to the brochure, and Quentin handed it to her, a flame of hope flaring to life in his chest—Alice was a nerd like him after all, maybe . . . .

 

“Quentin. You’re not seriously considering going to this?”

 

The little flame guttered and died.

 

“Well yeah. Uhm . . . why not?”

 

“Because we have magic! Real magic! Why would you still be interested in a fantasy?” She asked in that blunt way of hers, and Quentin took the brochure back.

 

“Because magic and Star Trek are two different things, Alice, and it’s fun and I’ve always liked it, and—quit shaming me!” He got to his feet and dug through his bookcase until he found the borrowed book and put it in her hands. “Here.” He slipped past her and out the door, and she turned, scowling.

 

“Quentin!”

 

Quentin ignored her as he jogged down the stairs and out the cottage’s front door. He went down the path that led back to Brakebill’s main building, then sat down on the outer edge of the big fountain there. He stewed there despite the chill in the air, and then a voice spoke at his left shoulder.

 

“What the fuck’s Creation Con?”

 

Quentin flinched in surprise and looked up to see Penny standing there, looming in his creepy Penny way. He scowled.

 

“What?”

 

“Creation Con. Heard you thinkin’ about it all the way across the quad, man. Thought you were gonna fix your wards?”

 

“Don’t you have better things to do than sneak up on people?” Quentin stood and Penny snatched the brochure from his hands. Quentin scowled and reached for it.

 

“The fuck . . . give that back!”

 

“Just a sec—” Penny put a hand on Quentin’s narrow chest, keeping him at arm’s length. “Star Trek? Seriously? When are you gonna get over all this nerd fanboy shit?”

 

“When you get over being such a huge douche!” Quentin made another grab for the brochure and Penny pushed him away casually before tossing the brochure at him and laughing. Quentin caught it, anger warring with embarrassment in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Fix your wards. You’re annoying every mind reader within fifty miles.” Penny adjusted his long scarf and strode off. Quentin watched him, twisting the brochure in both hands until the front cover tore. He tossed it down a moment later without looking back, pushing both hands through his hair. Eliot stepped out of one of the hedge maze exits a few moments later, just in time to see Quentin vanish around a corner. Eliot opened his mouth to call to him when the toe of his shoe struck the crumpled brochure. He bent down and retrieved it, using a fixing spell to smooth out the wrinkles and then repaired the tear in the cover. The set of Quentin’s shoulders as he’d retreated told Eliot the story, and he sighed.

 

“ _Merde_.” He muttered, slipping the brochure into his vest pocket before heading back toward the cottage.

 

It was getting late, and he had a meeting to call.

 

_________________________________________

_Three Days Later_

“Quentin?” The voice called from outside his bedroom door, along with a sharp knocking, and Quentin barely glanced up from his nest of blankets or from his copy of _The Wandering Dune_. It was Saturday morning and people would be lining up at Javits in Manhattan already, but not Quentin Coldwater. No sir. He’d had enough humiliation, thank you very much. He turned a page, trying not to think of the brand-new command gold tunic in his closet. He’d bought it at a costume shop months ago, along with a type-2 phaser.

 

Before Brakebills. Before he’d lost Julia.

 

The insistent knock came again and then the door opened a crack. Quentin frowned without looking up.

 

“When I don’t answer, that means I’m either busy, asleep, or dead, and you don’t open the door.”

 

“But Captain. To leave for Manhattan without you would be most illogical.”

 

Quentin’s head snapped up as Eliot spoke, and the shock that filled his senses couldn’t have been more complete if the Beast had stepped into his room with a tray of little cakes and some fresh Earl Grey and invited him to sit down to tea. Eliot stood in his doorway in an Enterprise tunic—science blue—his dark hair brushed back and slicked down and bangs—bangs! Shaped across his forehead. Vulcan ear tips adorned both ears. Quentin’s mouth opened and closed like that of a a dying fish. Eliot stepped into the room, followed by Margo, Penny, Alice, and Kady. Margo was dressed like Uhura, right down to the dangling gold earrings, while Penny was in science blue. Alice had her hair braided into an impossible-looking Yeoman Rand beehive, while Kady blurred genders by wearing a command gold tunic and breeches, lieutenant braids on her sleeves. Quentin stood, shaking his head.

 

“What—what’s—uhm—Eliot? What _is_ this?” He asked, and Eliot tipped his head to one side.

 

“This is your crew, captain.” Eliot went to the closet and rummaged through it until he found Quentin’s tunic, breeches, and boots. “And it is time for you to get dressed, we rendezvous with Javits in an hour.”

 

“Javits—you mean . . . but . . . you all said the convention was stupid and boring and childish?”

 

“So we did.” Margo drawled. “And then we changed our minds. There’s some great clubs near Javits, and I can get a lot of play out of a dress this short.” Margo glanced down at her legs and then looked over at Penny. “What do you think?”

 

“Damn it woman, I’m a doctor, not a club rat!” Penny growled, and Margo rolled her eyes even as her lips curved upward.

 

“It’s possible we were a bit hasty the other day.” Eliot nodded. “Besides . . . costumes are fun, and my pants hide the flask full of Glenlivet I’m carrying.”

 

“Get dressed, Q.” Alice smiled. “We’ll wait for you downstairs.” They filed out, one by one, and Quentin glanced up from smoothing out his tunic.

 

“Eliot?”

 

“Hmm?” Eliot turned in that graceful way of his, and in that moment, Quentin reflected that his friend probably had no idea what a perfect Spock he made.

 

“Was all this your idea?”

 

Eliot tipped his amber eyes toward the ceiling before stepping closer to Quentin until their chests nearly touched.

 

“Quentin . . . even a self-absorbed lush like myself knows when the needs of the one must outweigh the needs of the many.” He leaned forward and kissed Quentin’s forehead, an action that made him shiver. “Come on . . . get dressed, we’re portaling our asses out of here in fifteen minutes.” He headed out the door and Quentin stripped out of his sweats and pullover hoodie to tug on the tunic instead. Less than ten minutes later he was transformed into Captain Kirk, (even if his hair wasn’t quite right,) and he stuck his phaser onto the patch of Velcro sewed into the trousers.

 

“Come on, Captain, or we’ll fucking mutiny and leave without you!” Margo called up the stairs, and Quentin grinned. His friends were waiting for him—even Penny, and Quentin would have to ask Eliot what kind of favor or promise he’d conjured up to get that to happen—and beyond Brakebills, the joys of his childhood waited, too.

 

Quentin ran out of the room, chasing that joy all the way to Manhattan and beyond.

 

_FIN_


End file.
